“My brother-in-law sure did,” I replied referring to the incident in the ICU which I witnessed.

AS he was coming out of his sleep, he became aware of the tube down his throat and began struggling with it so violently that he had to be held down while he was put back to sleep. He stayed that way for three days.

“You won’t even be aware of it,” the surgeon said, “and if you are you won’t remember.”

I decided to go with that. In the end you have to put your faith in something.

Still, some days later as I was wheeled into the operating theatre, the last conscious thought was of that tube down my throat.

Many hours later as I slowly awoke, I remember the doctor saying, “the breathing tube is out now, you can speak.”

“What breathing tube?” I asked.

The thing is, if you don’t know something has happened to you, has it really happened?